Aleppo Evacuations Hopefully Will be Completed This Week

Aleppo Evacuations May be Completed as Early as Tomorrow

Turkey has announced that Aleppo evacuations of thousands of Syrians might be completed by Wednesday. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu tweeted today that 37500 people have been evacuated and the goal is to complete evacuations tomorrow. The number evacuated, differs, somewhat, from the number the International Committee of the Red Cross says have been removed. The Red Cross says 25000 have been evacuated and the operation is “still ongoing.”

Aleppo Evacuations Continue

A spokesman for the Free Syrian Army, Osama Abo Zaid claimed that a convoy of about 100 buses was due to leave the city. He said an additional 400 private cars were helping in the evacuation. During the last few days a number of the buses, used for evacuations, were set on fire. One of the people evacuated was seven-year-old Bana Alabed. She has become known throughout the world following the tweets she had sent from Aleppo. The young girl was removed to Turkey, with her family, yesterday. Her mother, Fatemah, tweeted, “I can’t & we can’t all be happy until all the remaining people who want to leave are evacuated from East Aleppo.”

The United Nations Security Council, with a unanimous vote yesterday, moved to redeploy UN staff to Aleppo to monitor and report on the evacuation of civilians. The resolution stressed “the importance to ensure the voluntary, safe and dignified passage of all civilians from the eastern districts of Aleppo or other areas, under the monitoring of and coordination by the United Nations and other relevant institutions, to a destination of their choice.”